LSAT 108 – Section 2 – Question 11

LSAT 108 - Section 2 - Question 11

February 2000

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT108 S2 Q11
+LR
Point at issue: disagree +Disagr
A
84%
167
B
1%
149
C
5%
155
D
3%
157
E
7%
163
141
150
159
 +Medium 145.001 +SubsectionEasier

Mario: The field of cognitive science is not a genuinely autonomous discipline since it addresses issues also addressed by the disciplines of computer science, linguistics, and psychology. A genuinely autonomous discipline has a domain of inquiry all its own.

Lucy: Nonsense. You’ve always acknowledged that philosophy is a genuinely autonomous discipline and that, like most people, you think of philosophy as addressing issues also addressed by the disciplines of linguistics, mathematics, and psychology. A field of study is a genuinely autonomous discipline by virtue of its having a unique methodology rather than by virtue of its addressing issues that no other field of study addresses.

Speaker 1 Summary

Mario says that cognitive science is not a genuinely autonomous discipline. Why not? Because a genuinely autonomous discipline must have a unique domain of inquiry, but the domain of cognitive science overlaps with other disciplines.

Speaker 2 Summary

Lucy disagrees with Mario’s definition of what makes a discipline genuinely autonomous. She claims that a genuinely autonomous discipline is defined by a unique methodology, not a unique domain of inquiry. Lucy supports this with the example of philosophy, which Mario agrees is autonomous despite the fact that its domain overlaps with several other fields.

Objective

We need to find a point of disagreement. Mario and Lucy disagree on what defines a genuinely autonomous discipline. Mario thinks it’s a unique domain, but Lucy thinks it’s a unique methodology.

A
If a field of study that has a unique methodology lacks a domain of inquiry all its own, it can nonetheless be a genuinely autonomous discipline.

Mario disagrees with this, but Lucy agrees. Mario claims that a unique domain of inquiry is a necessary requirement for a genuinely autonomous discipline. Lucy thinks that a unique methodology is necessary but a unique domain is not. This is a point of disagreement.

B
If a field of study is not a genuinely autonomous discipline, it can still have a unique methodology.

Neither speaker mentions the characteristics that any field that is not a genuinely autonomous discipline can or cannot have. We just don’t know.

C
All fields of study that are characterized by a unique methodology and by a domain of inquiry all their own are genuinely autonomous disciplines.

Each speaker proposes one of these only as a necessary condition for a genuinely autonomous discipline. However, we don’t know if either speaker thinks that these conditions, together or apart, are sufficient to make a domain genuinely autonomous.

D
Any field of study that is not a genuinely autonomous discipline lacks both a unique domain of inquiry and a unique methodology.

Neither speaker gives an opinion on this entire statement. To each speaker, lacking one of these conditions is sufficient to make a field not autonomous. However, neither speaker implies that the lack of both conditions is necessary for a field not to be autonomous.

E
Any field of study that is not a genuinely autonomous discipline addresses issues also addressed by disciplines that are genuinely autonomous.

Neither speaker gives an opinion about this. Mario thinks that focusing on unique issues is necessary for a discipline to be genuinely autonomous, but we don’t know if he thinks there are other necessary conditions as well. We know even less about Lucy’s opinion.

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LSAT PrepTest 108 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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